Prototype X is a scaled model of a bus designed for the salvation of the people. It is an object that comes as an answer to the demands of growing religious tourism industry organized by the Romanian Orthodox Church. I offer an efficient solution to a current and urgent problem. (Mihai Balko)

Mihai Balko’s project Prototype X highlights the immobility and inertia of Romanian religious practice, exploring its dimensions and bringing forth the anachronism of public outpourings of religious sentiment. The artist sees the contemporary pilgrimage as a practice carried out in the symbolic space between the “ecumenical bus” – an air-conditioned coach – and the promise of an afterlife reward, advertised as “the Holly Land for all” for the people embarked on this journey. Thus, the action of the pilgrimage loses its initial importance and meaning and becomes a mere escape from the daily routine, or a possibility to buy one’s salvation through means that recall the Middle Ages’ practice of indulgences. (Judit Balko, curator)